Bill O’Reilly has had a less-than-stellar year. After multiple women came forward and accused the former O’Reilly Factor host of sexual harassment (and Fox paid out some $13 million in settlements), O’Reilly was let go by Fox News and has since stayed off the airwaves. In his first television appearance since his firing, O’Reilly sat down with Matt Lauer on The Today Show this morning to discuss his new book and his scandalous ousting at the network.

Lauer wasted no time in addressing the elephant in the room and immediately asked O’Reilly about the accusations – and O’Reilly wasted no time denying them. Lauer didn’t let up, however, and continued to ask O’Reilly hard-hitting questions about the circumstances of his firing.

“You were probably the last guy in the world that they wanted to fire,” said Lauer. “Because you were the guy that the ratings and the revenues were built on. You carried that network on your shoulders for a lot of years. So doesn’t it seem safe to assume that the people at Fox News were given a piece of information, or given some evidence, that simply made it impossible for you to stay on at Fox News?”

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O’Reilly refuted this theory, claiming there were a “lot of other business things in play at that time and still today that 21st Century was involved with, and it was a business decision that they made.”

Lauer wasn’t buying it, and again pressured O’Reilly for a straight answer: “you don’t let your number one guy go unless you have information that you think makes him-”

“That’s not true,” O’Reilly fired back.

O’Reilly then claimed he never harassed anyone at Fox, nor was he ever subjected to any HR complaints in his “42 years” in the business at 12 different companies. The “flood” of lawsuits lodged against him happen at every company, he said, and they’re settled for a wide array of reasons – just because his accusers were given money does not mean their claims are valid.

“Every allegation is a conviction,” O’Reilly insisted. “They don’t look for the truth.”

Lauer cut off O’Reilly, imploring him to “think about those five women and what they did.”

“They came forward and filed complaints against the biggest star at the network they worked at. Think of how intimidating that must have been, how nerve-wracking that must have been – doesn’t that tell you how strongly they felt about the way they were treated by you?”

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“Well, it’s not just me,” O’Reilly responded. “Those lawsuits involve many other people. Not just me. So I don’t know – I’m not gonna speculate about intent or why people did what they did. But you don’t have this story, Lauer, correct.”

When Lauer realized they weren’t going to get anywhere, he then asked O’Reilly if he had done any “soul searching” over the last six months and reevaluated how he treated women. Unsurprisingly, O’Reilly remained unmoved, informing Lauer that his conscience was clear and he had assembled a legal team in an effort to get the “truth to the American people” (he also didn’t miss the opportunity to plug his websites). After some more heated back-and-forth (and O’Reilly calling Lauer out for “sarcasm”), Lauer asked him if there were any “self-inflicted wounds”, despite the fact that O’Reilly seems to believe that his firing was wholly not his fault.

“Nobody’s a perfect person, but I can go to sleep at night very well knowing that I never mistreated anyone on my watch in 42 years,” O’Reilly concluded.